Criminal; Whether Conspirator was Vicariously Liable for Reckless Homicide
Committed By Coconspirator; Whether Trial Court Properly Instructed Jury on
Consciousness of Guilt and Reasonable Doubt. In connection with the deaths
of Wahied Jerjies and Sara Sedor, the state charged the defendant with two
counts of murder and felony murder, first degree robbery and conspiracy to
commit first degree robbery, among other things. The state alleged that the
defendant conspired with Keith Taylor and Maurice Lawrence to rob the victims
and that during the course of such robbery, Taylor fatally shot Jerjies and
fatally beat Sedor. At trial, the defendant claimed that he agreed to go for a
car ride with Taylor and Lawrence and admitted taking something from the victims'
apartment but asserted that he did not conspire to commit robbery and was not
aware that Taylor and Lawrence were armed until after he arrived at the
victims' apartment. He also claimed that he and Lawrence ran out of the
apartment before the victims were killed. The state maintained that the
defendant was vicariously liable for Taylor's actions in killing the victims. Before
the jury rendered its verdict, the defendant moved for an acquittal on the
murder charges. He argued that his role in the victims' deaths was so
attenuated that he could not be held vicariously liable for their deaths under United
States v. Pinkerton, 328 U.S. 640 (1946). Pinkerton provides
that a conspirator may be held liable for criminal offenses committed by a coconspirator
if those offenses are within the scope of the conspiracy and are reasonably
foreseeable as a necessary or natural consequence of the conspiracy. The trial
court denied the defendant's motion. Thereafter, it granted his request to
instruct the jury on reckless manslaughter in connection with Sedor's death as
a lesser included offense of murder. It specifically informed the jury that in
order to convict the defendant of reckless manslaughter, it would have to find
that Taylor was extremely indifferent to human life and recklessly engaged in
conduct creating a grave risk of death to Sedor. The jury later found the
defendant guilty of, among other things, the murder of Jerjies and the reckless
manslaughter of Sedor under the Pinkerton theory of vicarious liability.
The defendant then filed another motion for a judgment of acquittal in which he
argued that the Pinkerton theory of vicarious liability is inapplicable
to the charge of manslaughter. He essentially claimed that vicarious liability
does not extend to a coconspirator's reckless or unintended act. The court
denied his motion and sentenced him accordingly. In this appeal, the Supreme
Court will determine whether a conspirator can be held vicariously liable for a
reckless and therefore unintended homicide committed by a coconspirator. It
will also determine whether the trial court's charge on consciousness of guilt
improperly bolstered testimony from the state's central witness and whether its
charge on reasonable doubt improperly diluted the state's burden of proof.